Dfl 18 
.B64 
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I 



BRITISH 

VERSUS 

GERMAN 
IMPERIALISM 



A CONTRAST 



PRICE, FIVE CENTS 



Neutral Publishing Company 

280 Broadway, New York 



?& 



Foreword 



QINCE the commencement of the Great European 
^ War, many people have found themselves at a 
loss, on account of their lack of knowledge of Euro- 
pean governments, particularly those of the British 
and German Empires, to form an honest opinion on 
the great European conflict. Charges of Prussian 
militarism against Germany and counter charges 
of a similar nature against Great Britain have been 
made by partisans of both sides. The purpose of 
this pamphlet is to lay before Americans the two 
systems of Imperialism, representing, on the one 
hand, the German Empire, and on the other, the 
British Empire, and let the readers judge for them- 
selves. P. J. R. 



British vs. German 
Imperialism 

RUSSIA has violated the neutrality of Persia — 
Persia has protested. She is a "small nation- 
ality," and the Allies, we are told, are fighting the 
battle of the small nationalities. Also for the 
sanctity of treaty obligations. England is the 
pledged defender of Persian neutrality. She has 
acquiesced in Eussia's action. Egypt is a "small 
nationality" — her Khedive is fighting England be- 
cause England has violated her pledge to evacuate 
his country. 

It was the Great Napoleon who declared that the 
falsification of official documents is more frequent 
among the English than among any other people. 
Our readers will remember how the official White 
Paper on the Curragh Mutiny a few months ago 
was falsified. But even from the British official 
correspondence on the war we have shown how the 
plea of England that she engaged in war with Ger- 
many because of the violation of Belgian neutrality 
was untrue — we have shown her story that she is 
fighting against militarism is untrue. We shall 
now show why she is fighting. 

The Origin of the British Empire Idea. 

When France, led by Joan of Arc, defeated 
definitively the design of the Norman conquerors 
of England to seize the throne of France and create 
an empire governed from Paris, of which England 
would be a province, the idea of an island-empire 
was first conceived by the rulers of England. It 
did not take definite shape until the reign of Eliza- 
beth — when the lucky accident for Britain of the 
storm that scattered the Spanish Armada made 
England a strong Power, and filled her with the 



dream of the empire of the sea. From that time 
main British policy was directed to that end. There 
were three essential factors. Ireland must be re- 
duced to impotence, the Low Countries must cease 
to be in the possession of a Great Power or to 
themselves become a Great Power, and no one 
Power on the Continent must be allowed to grow 
to such strength that it could endanger England's 
supremacy. 

British and German Empire. 

Some years ago in these columns — in our articles 
on Pitt's Policy — we pointed all this out. When 
John Mitchel, in his "Apology for the British Gov- 
ernment in Ireland," wrote that assuming it was 
essential to the world for what is termed the British 
Empire to exist, then the policy the English fol- 
lowed in Ireland was the only policy they could 
follow, his fierce irony enshrined an absolute truth. 
There is not, and never has been, a British Empire 
in the sense that there is a German Empire. There 
is a supreme and absolute England to which Ire- 
land, India and Scotland are subject, and which 
has dependencies throughout the world, none of 
whom are permitted a voice in Imperial policy. 
This is the direct antithesis of the German Empire, 
which is founded on racial unity, State self-govern- 
ment, and common control of Imperial policy by 
the constituent States. It is repugnant to the 
Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is based on the 
joint control by the two chief States of Imperial 
affairs, and the local freedom and self-government 
of the other States. It has points of resemblance 
to the French and Russian Empires, though it dif- 
fers materially from them. It has also resem- 
blances to Rome and much more to Carthage, but 
in itself it is unique. There has been no parallel 
to it in the history of civilization. 

If the German Empire were to assimilate itself 
to the British model, all the kingdoms, principali- 
ties, grand-dukedoms, and republics of Germany 

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would be abolished, their Parliaments taken away, 
and a Parliament set up in Berlin in which Prussia 
would control both Houses by enormous majorities. 
The German colonies beyond the seas would be 
allowed local Parliaments, but denied any voice in 
Imperial policy, which would be dictated by Prus- 
sia, and the revenues of the Empire would go to 
swell the pride and power of Prussia. Here would 
be a revolution such as no German has ever dreamed 
of and such as Germans would fight to the death 
against. 

But if the British Empire were to be modelled 
on Germany, it would be a revolution that no man 
within the Empire, except possibly the majority 
of the English themselves, would fight, against. It 
would involve England taking the same place with- 
in the British Empire that Prussia occupies in 
the German Empire— it would involve the re- 
appearance of Ireland and Scotland as separate 
kingdoms within the Empire, exactly as Bavaria 
and Saxony are kingdoms within the German Em- 
pire. It would involve the erection of Wales, in 
fact into what it is in name — a principality, the 
grant of self-government to India, and the assembly 
of representatives of England, Ireland, Scotland, 
Wales, India, and perhaps the colonies in an Im- 
perial Council (Bundesrath), with the power of 
peace and war in its hands. 

Obviously in such a new-modelled Empire, Eng- 
land would be the strongest single State, as Prussia 
is the strongest single State in Germany. Obvious- 
ly her vote would be the largest single vote in Im- 
perial affairs, and her influence the strongest single 
"influence, but as in the German Empire the com- 
bined vote and influence of Bavaria, Saxony, Wur- 
temburg, and the smaller States can always out- 
weigh Prussia, so in this new-modelled Empire the 
^ote and influence of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and 
the other States would always outweigh England if 
the necessity arose. As there can be no Prussia 

3 



over all in Germany, there could be no England 
over- all in such an Empire. 

Imperial Unity. 

But there are obstacles to the creation of such 
an Empire which did not exist in Germany's case — 
obstacles other than the resistance of England her- 
self. Germany is a geographical unity, and almost 
a racial entity. Except for a fair proportion of 
Slavs (Poles) in the east and a small number of 
Latins (French) in the west, Germany is racially 
one. There is no racial as there is no national 
unity and no true political unity in what is with 
conscious or unconscious irony officially entitled 
the United Kingdom ; there is no geographical unity 
of what is termed the British Empire. 

To an extent, a similar obstacle existed in the 
case of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Geograph- 
ically united, the Empire was diverse in its nation- 
alities, languages, and peoples. Austria solved its 
riddle of Empire by halving the supreme control 
of policy with Hungary, and by granting local self- 
government to the smaller States, From this it 
will be seen that "Empire" as understood in Lon- 
don on the one hand, and in Berlin and Vienna on 
the other is fundamentally different. In the British 
Empire, Imperialism means, and has never meant 
anything else, but the Absolutism of England. 
When a Bavarian stands for the Empire he stands 
for Bavaria. When an Hungarian stands for the 
Empire he stands for Hungary. When an Irish- 
man stands for the Empire he stands for England. 

The German Empire is built on patriotism — the 
British Empire is built on trade. "Fatherland," 
which dissolves the little jealousies of Prussian and 
Bavarian and Saxon and Wurtemburger has no 
answering echo in the Englishman's heart. The 
national life of England is dead — choked by com- 
mercialism, and where the German marches to bat- 
tle singing — 

4 



"German troth and German women, 
German wine and German song, 

Shall inspire us in the battle, 

Shall preserve us pure and strong. 

"German brotherhood and freedom 
E'er shall nourish though we fall. 

In its beauty — in its duty, 

Deutschland ! Deutschland ! over all !" 

The soldiers of England are sought to be inspired 
by leering jingles from the music-hall and exhorta- 
tions to them to smite the "Huns" that German 
trade may be captured for England. 

The Father of the British Empire. 

To rise upon the decay of Spain to world-Empire, 
Elizabeth planned, James pursued, Charles failed 
to follow, and Cromwell, striking down the mon- 
arch's sceptre, took up the game and played with 
the boldest hand. To establish one of two ad- 
joining islands as world-master involved the crush- 
ing of the other. England alone could not rise to 
Empire with Ireland hostile. She must either take 
Ireland as an equal partner or destroy Ireland. 
She made up her mind to bear no sister near her 
throne, and therefore to destroy Ireland, Eliza- 
beth's and James' wars, confiscations and planta- 
tions in Ireland had behind them as the prime 
motive the reduction of Ireland to a position of such 
weakness that she must lose her individuality, and 
feel herself and become a helot-State to her neigh- 
bor. It was Cromwell who carried out this policy 
towards Ireland with thoroughness. Spain had 
ceased to be the real enemy to England's rise to 
world-power when he came upon the scene. Hol- 
land and France were the powers to be overcome. 
Ireland was the nation to be destroyed. With a 
ruthlessness greater than that of his predecessors 
he reduced Ireland, and then turned to set Holland 
and France at each other's throats. No other man 
so unscrupulously bold has appeared in English 

5 



history. Without him the British Empire of to-day 
would be impossible. He did not order the Irish 
Catholics to Hell or Connacht because he hated the 
Irish or detested Catholicism — he did not slaughter 
Irish men, Irish women and Irish children for mere 
lust of cruelty — nor did he order the capture and 
sale to Barbarian slavery of Irish youths and maid- 
ens because he loathed children. He did not loathe 
children. He did these things because to create 
a new world with England absolute was impossible 
unless they were done. The Editor of the organ of 
the British Non-comformist conscience — Sir Wil- 
liam Robertson Mcholl — who adjures men "by the 
memory of Cromwell" to fight against Germany, 
is a lucid and learned Englishman. The British 
Empire as it exists to-day was created by Oliver 
Cromwell. If it is not a monstrosity he was no 
monster. If it has been a blessing to the world, the 
deeds which Cromwell committed in Ireland were 
excusable, because without them the British Em- 
pire as vtf .know it could nt ver have been born. 

Whether he was a blessing or a curse to Eng- 
land, it is Tor Englishmen to say — whether an Eng- 
land, with a national life as distinct from that Im- 
perial vision which sees in money-making the aim 
" and object of human existence, would be a better 
*4 '* #nd^hobler England it is for Englishmen to con- 
'&' \j$flL$f? To Ireland Cromwell was a curse, not be- 
cause he ravaged and slew more ruthlessly than 
his predecessors, but because he stretched Ireland 
on the rack of British Empire. 

England's Unwavering Policy. 

Except for the brief interregnum of the Stuarts, 
who with all their vices and feebleness, had Celtic 
instinct enough to dislike and fear that vision of 
universal Empire in which the soul and body of 
Carthage and Rome had been destroyed and the 
soul and body of Spain had fallen sick — except for 
the brief Stuart period, from Cromwell's death to 
the fall of Limerick — English policy has been un- 

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waveringly Cromwell's policy — applied with dif- 
ferent degrees of courage and insight according to 
the character of English statesmen at different 
periods. Walpole, Chatham, North, Rockingham, 
Pitt, Canning, Melbourne, Palmerston, Disraeli, 
Gladstone, Balfour, and Asquith, all have lived and 
live in the acceptance of Cromwell's concept of 
Empire, all accepted or accept in principle his 
methods. 

1782 and Pitt. 

Ireland, though to outward appearances, dead, 
survived Cromwell to fall again at Aughrim — this 
time it would appear finally. Yet though alien laws 
were nominally aimed at the religion and prop- 
erty of the ancient race in the country, these were 
so truly directed against the revival of any eco- 
nomic or political power in Ireland that within a 
generation they began to weigh with the oppressor's 
hand upon the resident minority whom England 
had placed as her jailors over the fallen nation. 
The re-birth of resistance to English dominion in 
Ireland began among the descendants of England's 
settlers, and culminated in the Volunteer movement 
of 1782, when they led the whole people to a blood- 
less victory over England, which had it endured 
would have reared what is now called the British 
Empire on a basis akin to that of Austro-Hungary. 
In 1782, the arms of the Volunteers compelled the 
recognition of Ireland as a sovereign State, the 
express admission by England that her claim to 
rule Ireland was and had been an usurped claim, 
and that henceforth and forever she adjured it, 
recognizing in Ireland a kingdom with equal sov- 
ereign powers to her own. Thenceforward Ireland 
could fly her own flag, raise and maintain her own 
army and navy, appoint her own representatives 
abroad, make war and peace on her own account, 
and share or refuse to share in England's wars as 
she deemed best. The Crown of Ireland and the 
Crown of England were worn by the same per- 
sonage, as the Crown of Hanover and the Crown of 

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England were at the time worn by the same per- 
sonage. This was the constitutional limit of any 
connection between the two countries. Unfor- 
tunately, Ireland did not do what she might have 
done. She did not proceed to raise a regular army 
and build a fleet and send her representatives to 
other Powers. She believed England's written and 
attested pledge, and where she should have armed 
she disarmed. England then tore the Treaty of 
1783 to shreds, and in blood and rapine struck 
down the Irish nation to the earth. 

"It was Pitt did it," said Mr. Gladstone, when 
he became an advocate of Home Rule. It was the 
English policy of Elizabeth and of Cromwell — 
administered by Pitt — that did this thing. In 1782 
England stood at the most critical point in her 
history from the day the Armada menaced her 
shores until to-day. She had lost her American 
colonies, and Ireland had sprung up again an armed 
nation beyond her power to overcome. England 
had two choices : she could accept the position and 
re-make an Empire in which she would be what 
Prussia is in Germany to-day or what Austria is 
in Austro-Hungary. She pretended to do so, but 
while she pretended she plotted to recover her old 
place — to make the Empire a name — herself the 
Empire. She plotted to destroy Ireland utterly and 
to regain the American colonies. Her plot ap- 
peared to succeed with the Act of Union in Ire- 
land's case. Her policy has never since ceased to 
work to the end of drawing back the United States 
into her grasp. There can be no two suns in one 
firmament, and if the world is to be dominated by 
the English, there can be no two English-speaking 
Empires. London must control Washington or 
Washington will control London. There can be 
no strong or prosperous Ireland consistent with 
English Absolutism in the so-called Empire. There- 
fore, Irish Nationalism is de facto a crime, Irish 
education is distorted to maim the minds and spirit 
of the people, Irish individuality is repressed, Irish 

8 



trade and commerce have been undermined and 
ruined, the Irish population has been reduced by 
half, and the Irish name has been defamed through- 
out the world. 

Methods of England. 

All this it was essential to England to do if she 
were to suck the marrow of the world for herself. 
She no more hated Catholicity than she hated 
Mohammedanism, and as to the people of Ireland 
she was equally indifferent when it was needful to 
her to repress them as to whether they were of 
Saxon or of Celtic blood. She used the Protestant 
to keep the Catholic in check when the Catholic 
endangered her — she used the Catholic to aid her 
against the Protestant when the Protestant began 
to feel himself an Irishman, not an English col- 
onist. Whenever one creed or section in Ireland 
attempts to thwart her policy, then she will seek 
to influence and cunningly bribe another creed or 
another section to cut its throat for her. She has 
done it, she must do it, and she will do it so long 
as Cromwell and Pitt's policy persists — the policy 
that has decreed the Empire exists for the sole 
benefit of England. 

A thousand subtle weapons England has to main- 
main this policy in Ireland. In the ear of the 
Protestant she whispers that his Catholic country- 
men seeks his property, if not his life. In the ear 
of the Catholic she whispers that she is the shield 
between him and the revival of that "Protestant 
Ascendancy" which she herself created. Her Lib- 
eral papers grow indignant over Orange outrages 
on Nationalists, her Tory papers declaim of Na- 
tionalist outrages on Orangemen. Her Liberal 
Government gives Catholics J. P.-ships and small 
Government situations — her Tory Governments 
confers these favors on Protestants — and both ac- 
tions have the one aim — to keep Ireland perpetually 
divided against itself. When the English Tory 
rules, the Irish Unionist will be his Sepoy. When 

9 



the English Liberal rules, the Irish Home Ruler 
will be his janissary; both too ignorant of their 
country's history and position to realize what they 
are — nay, often believing themselves to be wise and 
patriotic men. 

Commerce Before the War. 

Before this war broke out the commerce of 
England represented annually in round figures 
1,400 millions sterling, against 1,050 millions for 
Germany, 860 millions for the United States, 600 
millions for France, 520 millions for Holland, and 
350 millions for Belgium. Germany had surpassed 
the United States as a trade competitor of Eng- 
land, and was steadily approaching a position of 
equality. English Trade, therefore, called in mute 
eloquence for her suppression. German's mercan- 
tile marine, far inferior to England's in tonnage, 
was still the next in strength to her own. English 
commerce saw it would be prudent to stop its de- 
velopment. Germany's navy laid down last year 
only 480,000 tons against England's 2,000,000 tons, 
but still Germany's navy was nearest to her own in 
strength. Therefore, it must be destroyed. And 
so England ringed Germany around and when Rus- 
sia, reluctant France, and duped Belgium had been 
committed to arms against England's rival, Eng- 
land stepped in as the fourth ally, cut the cables, 
swept the rival commerce from the sea, and adjured 
the world to behold her fighting for Belgium — 
whom she left to bear the shock of battle unaided — 
for the "cause of the small nationalities," for the 
sanctity of treaties, for Civilization, for religion, 
against militarism, and against war ! 

England, said Bismarck a generation ago, has 
made all Europe an armed camp. England com- 
pelled every Great Power with a considerable com- 
merce to build a large navy to defend it when she 
refused to regard private property at sea equally as 
free from confiscation as private property on land. 
England, which spends more annually on militar- 

10 



ism than any other country in the world, save 
France, in the insolence of what her journals would 
call "junkerdum," challenged the world when she 
decreed that none should dare to build a navy more 
than 50 per cent, as strong as her own. Germany 
was the William Tell who refused to salute the 
English Gessler's hat, and so Germany was doomed 
to die. Her fleet — have not the journals of unctuous 
and pacific England declared it — was to be sunk 
in the waves, her ordnance factories reduced to 
smoking ruins, her trade taken from her, her mer- 
cantile marine seized for the British merchant, her 
Empire torn asunder, and her people forbidden ever 
again to compete against England — taught the con- 
vincing lesson that England taught the weavers of 
the Deacan. 

That was the programme. It is what Irishmen 
have died for and are being asked to die for under 
pretence that this base war to capture German 
trade and restore England that mastery of the sea 
she once wielded unfettered and unchallenged, is 
a war of defence, and not of aggression. Her war- 
ships range the seas to protect and extend the com- 
merce of the "United Kingdom" — and Ireland pays 
for "the protection of her trade" by that fleet, while 
her trade is non-existent. England takes 91 per 
cent, of the trade, Scotland 8, and Ireland 1 per 
cent. Of such is the "Empire." 

The Place for Irishmen. 

Were Germany to disappear to-morrow, England 
would become absolute ruler of the seas, as she was 
a hundred years ago. There would be no two naval 
or three naval Powers equal to her victorious fleet. 
Enriched with the spoils of German trade, a new 
lease of life as dictator of Europe would be open 
to her. Is it in such an hour this pseudo-champion 
of small nationalities would release her grip on 
Ireland, and help to raise it up to rival her in 
strength and prosperity — in such an hour that the 
Parliament which has publicly proclaimed that it 
"will not coerce Ulster" would enact Home Rule 

11 



for Ireland? Probably this war will end neither 
in a crushing victory for England nor for Ger- 
many, merely in a partial victory for one or the 
other. The amount of strength and influence Ire- 
land can exert will be determined in the last analy- 
sis by the number of robust men she has in the 
country. An Ireland denuded of men will be ig- 
nored in the final reckoning. Therefore the men of 
Ireland must be kept in Ireland. There are in Ire- 
land a considerable percentage — some 20 per cent, 
of the people — who have been taught they were not 
born of a nation, but of an "Empire." They speak 
in the one breath of "Empire" and "loyalty to 
England/' We observe that despite all the parade 
of "Empire" in which these people indulge, 85 per 
cent, of the young and strong among them remain 
in Ireland, while their fathers, uncles, and aunts 
write letters to the "Irish Times" about "seditious 
newspapers" which oppose recruiting. This hum- 
bug we have had always with us. The humbug that 
brazenly tells the traditional Nationalists of this 
country that it is their duty to immolate them- 
selves for England's sake is new in the public eye. 
Posterity will pass a judgment more terrible upon 
the men who in this crisis attempted to drain away 
the life-blood of Ireland for the strengthening of 
the Power that trampled her into the dust, than 
any judgment men may pass to-day. In that re- 
spect they may be left to posterity. The place for 
Irishmen to-day is in Ireland — the cause for Irish- 
men is Ireland, and the one concern of every honest 
and intelligent Irishman in regard to the war is 
that Ireland at the end of it shall be strong to 
regain what England, perjured to the lips, wrested 
from her in 1801 — her place amongst the nations of 
the world. 

Home Rule. 

Home Rule will not solve the Irish question. 
Whether it be good or bad, England could permit 
no serious development of Ireland under what is 
called Home Rule unless she abandoned the policy 

12 



of English Absolutism in the Empire. Between the 
utter destruction of Ireland and the permanent 
separation of the two countries, there is only one 
via media— the reconstruction of the British Em- 
pire on the model of Germany or Austro-Hungary, 
a reconstruction which would mean the end of 
England as the world has known it for the past 200 
years, and the appearance of a new England whose 
relationship to Ireland would be the relationship 
of Austria to Hungary or Prussia to Bavaria. That 
via media England will always voluntarily refuse 
to tread. We have in Ireland men who talk about 
the Empire, while they call themselves National- 
ists. Let them not deceive anybody. The Empire 
to-day is England— only England— and if Germany 
went down completely in this war, England would 
be freer and stronger to choke the Irish nation to 
death than she is to-day. 

What Has England Lost? 

No man who lives will see France, whatever the 
event of this war, recover her strength. Her dwin- 
dling manhood has been slaughtered by the hun- 
dred thousand, and her industry and commerce 
ruined by the hundred million. Thirty years will 
pass before Belgium again may become what she 
was twelve months ago. But what has England 
lost— a hundred thousand Irish, Scots, Indians, 
Canadians, mixed with her own, who are drawn 
from a population of eight million men, and a few 
hundred million pounds that in the event of de- 
cisive victory she will recover from Germany. Her 
soil is free, her trade and industry and commerce, 
however diminished, run along the appointed chan- 
nels. France and Belgium are devastated and 
decimated. England is still intact. Her news- 
papers make it appear that her— in this stupendous 
war— negligible army of 150,000 men is doing the 
real fighting in a war in which two and a half 
million French and Belgians are in the fighting line. 
Her fleet has cleared the seas of German commerce, 

13 



and affords protection to her own and to her coasts. 
Her manhood remains at home to "capture German 
trade," and her statesmen see in triumph for her a 
greater triumph than when she destroyed the mari- 
time power of Holland and of France to the end 
that she might dominate the seas and the world's 
commerce. For whatever power grows strong in 
ships that power England will essay to destroy by 
leaguing Europe against it, as she has leagued 
Europe against Germany. 

What Ireland Is. 

That Ireland is a very small country with very 
small resources and that this two-fold littleness 
would effectually prevent her standing by herself, 
even were it not that her geographical proximity to 
England must always render her dependent, is a 
teaching explicitly and implicitly drilled into the 
heads of the people of Ireland from the primary 
school-room to the university. "Education" in this 
country has been subtly but ably directed to de- 
stroy national self-reliance and efface national tra- 
dition. From Ireland and from the English press 
the same idea has been spread abroad in the world. 
For fifty years there has been practically no direct 
communication between Ireland and the Continent. 
England, as a brilliant Irish priest has phrased it, 
has built around Ireland a wall of paper, on the 
inner side of which she has written what she wishes 
the Irish to believe of the peoples of the world 
outside the British flag, and on the outside of which 
she has inscribed what she wishes these peoples to 
believe of the Irish. So far as they think of Ire- 
land at all, foreigners of the European Continent 
think of it, in three cases out of four, as an in- 
significant country, very poor, and very turbulent. 

The geographical proximity of Ireland to Eng- 
land, adduced as a reason why England was in- 
tended by Providence to rule this island is a 
figment. Ireland is four times more distant from 
England than England herself is from France. 

14 



The "smallness" of Ireland is a fallacy. Ireland 
has a territory as large as Portugal, as large as 
Greece with her recent acquisitions, as large as 
Servia with her newly acquired province, twice as 
large as the Kingdom of Denmark, twice and a 
half as large as Holland, twice as large as Belgium, 
four times as large as Wurtemburg, five times as 
large as Saxony, and larger by many thousand 
square miles than the splendid Kingdom of Ba- 
varia, and in none of those countries, all independ- 
ent and with a potent voice in Europe, is the nat- 
ural productiveness of the soil equal to that of 
Ireland. The name and fame of Belgium and Hol- 
land are spread throughout the world, yet these 
two Kingdoms combined do not in their area equal 
70 per cent, of the area of Ireland. 

Yet in population Ireland falls far below most 
of these countries. Bavaria, with 3,300 square 
miles of territory less than Ireland, has three mil- 
lions more people. Belgium, scarcely a third the 
size of Ireland, has nearly double its population. 
Holland, on a third of Ireland's area, sustains 40 
per cent, a greater population. The explanation 
is simple. Sixty years ago the population of Ire- 
land was double what it is at present and rapidly 
increasing. At that time it was to England's popu- 
lation as 5 to 9. England for her interest forced 
Ireland out of tillage into cattle-raising, and by 
tens of thousands the Irish farmsteads, each of 
which supported a family, were "amalgamated" 
into grazing ranches, employing, where a hundred 
men had found occupation before, half a dozen 
men and boys to herd the cattle. The exodus from 
rural Ireland which began in 1845 under the op- 
eration of England's agricultural laws is still not 
ended. In actual numbers Ireland has lost 4,200,000 
people since 1845. But allowing for the natural 
increase of population which should have accrued 
between 1845 and the present time, Ireland's loss 
of population may be calculated at 10,000,000. If 
the same proportion between the populations of 

15 



England and Ireland had been maintained, Ireland 
would have to-day 16,000,000 of people instead of 
four. In 1846 the Irish were 5 to 9 English. To- 
day they are but 5 to 40 English. The English 
made the laws which massacred a people. 

And, even still, Ireland, in population, equals or 
exceeds some of the most thriving States of Europe. 
She has a much larger population than the Repub- 
lic of Switzerland, the Kingdom of Norway, the 
Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Greece, the 
Kingdom of Servia, or the Grand Duchy of Fin- 
land. As to her supposed poverty, her annual reve- 
nue is greater than the revenue of a dozen European 
countries, including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, 
Greece, Roumania, Switzerland and Portugal. All 
those countries support armies (some in addition 
navies), diplomatic and consular services out of 
their revenues. Ireland has neither army, navy, 
diplomatic nor consular service. Her revenues are* 
received by England and used by that country in 
supporting an armed and unarmed garrison of of- 
ficialdom in this country to keep it down that Eng- 
land may be kept up. 

The fashion in which the Irish revenues are spent 
by England may be thus illustrated : In Ireland 
all the "police" — an armed and drilled force — and 
all the judiciary are under the direct control of 
England. England appoints the judges, England 
appoints the police. They have no responsibility 
to the people of Ireland; even in the capital of 
Ireland, where the corporation is compelled to tax 
the people for the support of the police force, the 
corporation is not permitted even one representa- 
tive on the Board of Control, every member of 
which is appointed by the English Government. 
The population of England is roughly eight times 
that of Ireland and the criminal population of 
England is eleven times greater than the criminal 
population of Ireland, yet 2,000,000 pounds of Irish 
revenues are allocated to pay judges and police in 
Ireland, while in England, with eleven times the 

16 



number of criminals to deal with, the imperial tax- 
ation is but 1,850,000 pounds. The judicial bench 
in Ireland is the greatest scandal in Europe. Ele- 
vation to it is not determined by character and 
ability, but by the assured readiness of the men 
appointed to convict whomsoever the English Gov- 
ernment desires to be convicted and to acquit whom- 
soever the English Government desires should be 
acquitted. A County Court Judge in Ireland works 
66 days per year and receives a salary of 1,500 
pounds. A High Court Judge works 600 hours 
per annum and receives as salary and expenses 
from 3,500 to 5,000 pounds per annum. As to 
education, the English Government allows less of 
the Irish revenues to be spent on educating the 
800,000 children of Ireland than she expends on 
her armed police garrison. The salary of every 
British policeman in the country is the equivalent 
of the amount of money permitted to be spent out 
of Irish revenues on the education of 40 Irish 
children. 

"Ireland is not 'little,' Ireland is not poor." She 
is a country of extensive area and of considerable 
wealth, held and plundered by another country, 
who to shield her robbery persistently belittles and 
defames Ireland and the Irish to the rest of the 
world. 



17 



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